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I’m sure everyone has heard the story of the good Samaritan. This story is generally viewed as saying that if someone needs your help, you should help that person. However, this story is saying much more than that. The fact that a Samaritan stops to help the injured person when others did not is key to the story.
In Jesus’ time, the Israelites and the Samaritans had a long history of bad relations. The Samaritan were half Jewish and half Gentile. The Samaritans had their own temple, their own Torah and their own way to worship. Both Jews and Samaritans believed their religion was the correct one. Because of this, there was a long history of hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans. Neither generally interacted with one another. That’s what makes the parable of the good Samaritan so significant. While the religious figures, the priest and Levite, walked past the injured man, the Samaritan, because of past experience with the Israelites would have been the one expected to walk past the man, was the one who stopped to help him. The Samaritan was able to look past any biases or assumptions he may have had towards the injured man and instead saw a fellow human being in need.
I often think about who in our society is seen as worthy of love and acceptance? Do they have to be nice, pretty, smart, talented? Who fits into the conventional categories that society determines is worth love and acceptance, and who doesn’t fit into these categories? As much as I try to accept everyone that I encounter for who they truly are, I find that I also put people into categories of who is not pretty enough, smart enough, nice enough, not successful enough, etc. I haven’t always shown enough love and acceptance to the people who I put into the “not enough” category.
I learned this lesson from a severely disabled child at the Franciscan Hospital for Children several years ago while I was a Chaplain Intern there. Her name was Salma. Salma was a 12-year old girl from Qatar. Her parents were first cousins and Salma was born severely deformed. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t see, her deformities made her really hard to look at, but she carried within her a compassion that I had never experience before.
I met Salma while I was walking in the children’s ward looking for a child to visit. As I was walking through the ward, I saw a child sitting in a wagon in the hallway. As I approached this child, I saw that the child’s face was severely disfigured. It was so hard to look at that I looked away and immediately thought, not that child. I continued walking around the ward looking to see which children weren’t doing anything. I didn’t see many other children so I went up to one of the nurses and asked which child could use a visit. The nurse replied that I could visit Salma. She pointed the way to Salma’s room and told me she would bring Salma in. I went into the room and waited. After a few minutes, in came the nurse pulling the wagon with the disfigured child in it. I immediately felt guilty for having past by the one child that needed a visit the most.
The nurse introduced me to Salma and suggested I read to her. I began reading a children’s bible story to Salma. After a few minutes of my reading Salma put her hands to her ears and started screaming. She screamed until I stopped reading. Once I stopped reading, she stopped screaming. When I started reading again, she started screaming again with her hands to her ears. I read, she screamed, I stopped, she stopped. This went on for a while until I finally asked her if she wanted me to read to her. She wasn’t able to speak, so she couldn’t tell me what she wanted. I didn’t know what to do. I was lost because my normal ways of communicating through talking and gesturing didn’t work. So I sat there and stared at her unsure what to do.
Salma had a xylophone in the wagon with her, and every once in a while she would reach over and hit a note on the xylophone. Relieve to see something that she liked to do, I encouraged her to keep playing. After a little while, I had to leave and ended the visit, but I continued to think about Salma and how much she seemed to love music. I really love music too and I realized that was something I could share with Salma; something we had in common. So, the next day, I brought in my IPod to play music for Salma. I played some of my favorite songs for her and she sat and listened to them. I was kneeling by the wagon, holding the IPod in front of me choosing the songs to play. Salma had amazing hearing, and she could hear me pressing the buttons on the IPod. She reached out to touch what I was playing the music on. I realized this was the way she communicated, though sound and touch.
I continued to visit Salma with my IPod, playing her songs that I thought she would enjoy. On each visit she would reach out and touch the IPod. Then she got braver and felt my hands holding the IPod. After a few more visits, she skipped the IPod and started holding my hand. When I went to leave she didn’t want to let go. I stayed as long as I could listening to music and holding hands. This is what our visits consisted of the rest of the time I spent with Salma. This is how we communicated and connected through music and touch. It was strange to me to not be able to communicate through talking, but I discovered that through touch, I connected with Salma at a level that I had never experienced before. Then I began to appreciate and later cherish being able to sit quietly with Salma without feeling like I had to say or do anything. I began to look forward to this time with her.
I also noticed that other people had trouble getting past Salma’s deformities. They seemed to feel awkward and didn’t know what to do with Salma. I remember seeing Salma’s father talking to her and trying to interact with her and she wasn’t responding. I said to another intern, “I don’t think he knows what to do with her.” The other intern said, “I don’t blame him.” Salma’s father and the other intern couldn’t see past their expectations about how people should be with one another and missed the beauty and love that Salma could bring into their lives.
Salma went back to Qatar, where she came from. I will never see her again, but I will never forget everything that she taught me. Salma taught me that a beautiful person can be inside a body that is really hard to look at. She taught me that it is possible to connect with someone if I open my mind to the possibility of what the other person has to offer, and to receive someone else’s gift of compassion in whatever form they have to give it. She also taught me to let go of my own assumptions and when I could do that, I was able to receive God’s love and compassion through this little girl.
Jesus tells us to come to him with all the burdens, expectations and assumptions that we carry with us. We don’t need to carry this heavy load. All we need is to learn from Jesus, to learn what he can teach us about humility, love and compassion, and about how to be in relationship with God and with one another. Jesus doesn’t require rules, regulations, and burdensome assumptions and obligations – things that weigh us down and make us weary. We can let those things go.
Instead, what Jesus asks of us is much simpler and much less burdensome. Jesus asks us to be merciful, loving and kind with everyone. He asks us to love God with all our hearts, minds and souls and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light.
So, I invite you to shed the burdens, expectations and assumptions that are weighing you down, and to follow Jesus in the way of love and compassion. I ask you to think about who you have put in your “not worthy” category that could use your acceptance, love and compassion. Jesus said that it is easy to show love toward those who we already love. God will show us how to love those who seem unlovable.
Last week, I talked about Restorative Justice, and how Restorative Justice repairs harm that was caused. Repairing the harm allows people to heal from transgressions cause by others, and from their own transgressions. Today, I would like to talk about the power of God to heal us, even in our most broken places.
This sermon was written a little bit different. It is a joint sermon with someone close to me, who has gone through a long period of time healing his own demons. He now spends a lot of time helping people heal from their own demons, so I asked him for his perspective on this story. His comments are interspersed throughout the sermon.
I choose today’s reading, because to me the possessed man represents one of the most broken people in the Bible. This, is a man filled with many demons, these demons represent many things. They represent spiritual illness, mental illness, drug addiction, or intense physical or psychological pain. These demons can also represent smaller afflictions, such as shame or low self-worth.
Whatever these demons are, they control this man. He is living outside of his village in the tombs. They have isolated him from his friends, family, and other support systems. They have cause him to rip off his clothing. They have even driven him into the wilderness, perhaps the physical wilderness, or perhaps into the wilderness in his own mind. Even other people’s attempts to control him have failed. He has been shackled and bound, only to break free of those shackles. That is how strong his demons are.
His demons refer to themselves as Legion, meaning a vast multitude, but it doesn’t start out as a legion. It’s a development of one demon that is not attended to. It maybe a childhood affliction of abuse that was kept secret, bullying that progresses to loneliness, loss of a job and a hit to our pride. A marriage gone bad. Sadly, we find there are so many reasons to isolate, as the Garasene demon does. Once we isolate, we are left to our own thoughts, which only invite more demons of self-pity, self-loathing, and depression.
Our own demons, maybe not be as severe as this man’s, but I’m sure many of us have gone through times where we felt lost in the wilderness of our own pain, grief, addictions or whatever it may be that binds us. The things that we have tried to shackle ourselves to so that we can control the demons fail, and it seems we are left to deal with these demons on our own. But we don’t need to end up in that situation where we hurt so badly, we seek temporary relief or worse, lash out as a hurt person hurting others.
We also don’t need to be alone. Jesus sends people our way to try to help us look past the pain, but like the Garasene demons we chase them away. The residual pain of what first afflicted us is so far removed from what ails us currently, we can’t even identify the source of that pain without help. Yet, our pride kicks in and pushes people away. Our pain becomes so aggravated we scare people off and we want to hide when the bell of hope and help rings.
But them something happens. Jesus is at the door. Jesus the physician, the healer. Jesus the savior. When Jesus arrives, our demons, like the Garasene demons know who is at the door.
It is the demons, not the man, but the things tormenting the man, that recognize who Jesus is and sees that Jesus has the power to expel the demons, and heal this man. The demons know that Jesus has power over the things that afflict this man, a power that this man himself didn’t have. Jesus banishes the demons and heals this man down to his very soul.
The next thing that happens is that Jesus sends the demons into a herd of pigs who run off a cliff. The pig herders tell the villagers what happened, and the villagers come to see. There’s a part of this story that I missed until recently. I was always so focused on the exorcism of the demons that I didn’t pay much attention to the response of the villagers.
The story says that when the villagers saw the formerly possessed man clothed and calm, they were frightened, and told Jesus to go away. The Garasene individual did not want to hurt anyone. He sat at rest, and it was the people around him, who may have given up on the poor guy, who were so confused by the order of events that they choose to banish Jesus. Like many of us do, when we need to place blame onto somebody or something, Jesus is the easy target. Sadly, by banishing Jesus, the cycle only continues, as the demons see a Jesus-free soul to attach to.
Sometimes healing can be scary. Sometimes affliction is our comfort zone. It’s something that we are so used to feeling, that not having it is uncomfortable. It’s like losing a part of our selves. This can go for our own afflictions, or for the afflictions of those we can about. Sometimes the discomfort caused by these afflictions is so normal, we would feel lost without them.
Healing does not always happen quickly and easily like it happened in our story this morning. It’s often a long and difficult process. A passage that always resonated with me when I went through difficult times was Psalm 23. Most people are familiar with this one. It’s starts off very reassuring “The Lord is my Shephard, He lays me down in green pastures and leads me to still water. He restores my soul and leads me on the right path.”
It’s the next verse (verse 4) that has really helped me through difficult times. This verse says, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley. I fear no evil. For you are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me.” This verse, to me, is where deep healing really happens. Sometimes we have to go into the dark shadows to get to the place we need to be.
I have always known, this dark valley, as “the valley of the shadow of death.” This is the place of things lost and broken. This is the place where things go to die. Not the healthy parts of ourselves, but the broken parts of ourselves. There are things that have to die, or end, in order for us to be reborn anew and healed. We need to go through the valley of death, all the way through, if we are to be fully ourselves, fully whole, fully the person God created us to be. We need to go through the death process in order to have new life.
It’s easy to hang around at the entrance to the valley. Maybe we go in a few feet; stay a few minutes and then come right back out. We know we need to go through the valley, but it’s hard and its uncomfortable, maybe even painful. So, we hover around the entrance hoping that will be enough to heal us. Sometimes, we are dancing around the edges, thinking we’re doing the hard work when we’re only just touching the surface.
But we need to enter fully into the valley, and go all the way through so that we can reach the end of the healing process. We have to go all the way through, so that we can be fully healed.
What the psalm tells us is that God is with us all the way through to guide and comfort us. God does not leave us to walk through the valley alone. Jesus finds us in our most desperate situation, and comes Himself, as many people who have been forced into that dark valley by life circumstances, such as people on the streets or in prisons, have found.
The good news is that Jesus heals. The good news is that when Jesus removes our afflictions, we are not left empty, but are filled with the spirit.
We just have to enter the valley of death, and trust Jesus along the way.
In today’s reading, Jesus encounters a chief tax collector name, Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a Publican for Rome. His job was not to collect taxes to be used for the benefit of the people of Israel. Instead, he collected taxes and gave the money to Rome. Publicans also became very wealthy by collecting taxes in excess of what Rome required and keeping the difference. To the people of Israel, someone like Zacchaeus was a traitor and a crook. In today’s time, Zacchaeus would be the equivalent of a Wall Street CEO who is doing shady business deals with a foreign country that works against the interests of the U.S.
When Jesus comes to Jericho, Zacchaeus goes to great lengths to see Jesus, by running ahead of the crowd and climbing up a tree. Perhaps he knew that he was in need of healing. Jesus must have seen it too, because Jesus invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house for dinner. Zacchaeus’ response to Jesus coming over is one of the key points in the story. Zacchaeus immediately says that he is going to make amends for the harm that he caused. Not only is he going to give back what he took. He is going to give back four times more than what he stole.
What Zacchaeus offered to do was to pay restitution to the people he harmed. Restitution is part of a process called Restorative Justice. Maybe you have heard of Restorative Justice in the news. It is becoming a common way to address harm someone has caused rather than going through the courts and the criminal justice system. The focus of RJ is on repairing harm rather than punishing the offender.
The Rev Fred Anderson describes the principles that form the foundation of Restorative Justice. First, authentic justice requires that it focus on the harm that has been done to people and to communities. Second, restorative justice emphasizes offender accountability and responsibility. Third, those most directly involved and effected by a crime should have the opportunity to participate fully in the response and restorative process, if they desire.
This is where retributive justice, which is what our current criminal justice system is based on, and restorative justice, that we often find promoted throughout scripture, differ.
With retributive justice…victims’ suffering is often ignored. With restorative justice…victims’ suffering is acknowledged.
With retributive justice…blame is central. With restorative justice…problem-solving is central.
With retributive justice…the focus is on the past. With restorative justice…the focus is on the future.
With retributive justice…differences are emphasized. With restorative justice… commonalities are searched out.
Restorative justice is a vision of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm through cooperative processes that include all “stakeholders,” including the person most directly affected by the crime (who is the victim), friends and family of the victim, friends and family of the offender, and members of the community. Restorative Justice recognizes that the entire community is also harmed even in a crime that directly affects only one or two people.
Professor Howard Zehr writes that “restorative justice REQUIRES, at minimum, that we address victims’ harms and needs, that we hold offenders accountable to put right those harms, and that we involve victims, offenders, and communities in the process.”
I volunteer with a local organization called Communities for Restorative Justice, or C4RJ for short. C4RJ works with local police departments to help juvenile offenders understand and repair the harm they have caused. Usually the incidents are minor, like shop lifting or, in one case, breaking into an unused building to play a game called Air Soft. Most of the time, they don’t even realize that their actions will have negative effects on others. However, as Restorative Justice is becoming more commonly used, the cases have also become more complex, including incidents such as assault and grand larceny.
Part of the restorative process is to bring all those who were affected together to try to understand what happened and how the offender, or offenders, can repair harm to the victim. Often the victims just want to understand why the incident happened. In one case that was very memorable to me, a group of kids decided to take golf carts joy riding around a golf course in the middle of the night. Things got out of hand and the kids tore up the golf course, destroyed one of the golf carts and cause $20,000 in damages. The owner of the golf course arrived the next morning to the damages. When people showed up to golf, they had to be turned away. The people who worked at the golf course had to fix all the damages. This was a ripple effect was the unintended consequences these kids didn’t anticipate or were aware of.
The owner of the golf course was obviously very upset by this and wanted to understand why these kids had done this. He felt like it was a personal attack against him or the golf course. In reality, these kids just weren’t aware of the effect their actions would have on other people.
In almost every incident, the offenders are not thinking. Often when I ask them if they thought they were doing something wrong at the time, they say no. They often don’t realize they did something wrong until the police get involved.
In C4RJ’s process, the victim, offender, the offender’s parents, the police, and case facilitators, who help the offender through the process, meet together to hear from the offender about what happened and why it happened. The victim shares how the incident impacted him or her and how others were also indirectly impacted. Then, everyone together discusses and agrees on what the offender needs to do to repair the harm. The victim has a voice in what the offender needs to do so that the victim will feel like the harm has been repaired.
Often the offenders do some community service, write letters to apologize not only to the victim but to others affected, such as their parents, and spend time reflecting on the decisions they made that led to the incident. The goal is for the offender to understand the decisions that led to the incident and where he or she could have made different choices that wouldn’t have led to causing someone harm.
Once the offender has completed all the items agreed upon to repair the harm, everyone involved, the victim, offender, offender’s parents, police officer, facilitators come back together and recognize what the offender has accomplish. The victims hear the offenders talk about what they have done to repair harm and what they have learned through the process. The offenders also have the opportunity to reassure the victim that the incident will not happen again to the victim or to anyone else.
In the case of the golf course, at the beginning of the process, the golf course owner was visibly upset by what had happened. At the end of the process, when we all came back together and the golf course owner, who had received an apology from the kids, had a chance to understand why these kids did what they did, was reimbursed for the damages and saw the work these kid did to make sure they never did this again, was noticeably much less upset than at the beginning of the process. He was able to accept their apology and move past the incident. This is one of the benefits that Restorative Justice can bring.
In John 14:27, Jesus says “Peace, I bring you.” I believe that at the end of the process, the golf course owner was able to find peace about the incident.
Data shows that Restorative Justice works as well or even better than the traditional criminal justice system. According to various studies, the recidivism, or reoffence rate with Restorative Justice is 15% and between 30-60% with the traditional criminal justice system. Victim satisfaction with Restorative Justice is 80% and just 55% with the traditional criminal justice system
Restorative Justice does not just apply to crimes and the criminal justice system, but also to heal relationships. It is an approach that can help individual and communities address harm and conflict. Restorative Justice is becoming more common in schools to help kids learn healthy ways to deal with conflict. It has been used in prisons to help inmates and violent offenders learn healthier way to deal with conflict. It has been used in various countries to respond to genocide and civil war. And it was part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to bring healing to South Africa after apartheid.
You may have noticed that I’ve said repair the harm a lot because this is the focus of RJ and this is the focus of how Zacchaeus responded to Jesus. Jesus told Zacchaeus that salvation had come to him because of his willingness to repair the harm that he had caused.
As I thought about Restorative Justice over the past few days and the struggles that this country is going through. I started wondering what would it look like if people listened to one another about how the current dynamics are affecting them and their communities. If people listened to one another about how the harm they have experienced could be repair. What if Restorative Justice could bring healing to our nation, communities and families. What if Restorative Justice was the way to salvation and new life? What if Restorative Justice was our way forward?
I have often heard people say that they think of me when they hear the passage from Matthew where Jesus says that when you visit someone in prison, you are visiting Jesus. However, the passage that most reminds me of my own experience in the prisons is the conversion of Saul, who later became Paul. Like Saul, I was zealous against people who I thought were a danger to society. I thought that all people in prison were a danger and that everyone was safer if we just kept these people locked away. However, when I started entering the prisons, instead of finding dangerous men, I found hurting and broken people. I encountered Christ in each suffering and broken person that I met and came to realize that by creating more suffering for these people, I was in effect persecuting Christ. The scales began to fall off my eyes and I began to see suffering and humanity in a whole new way.
This morning, I would like to talk about my experiences, my own transformation, and the experiences of the men that I have gotten to know. These men have worked to repair the harm they have caused, to grow and be better people. These are the stories that don’t often get told. I often feel I am one of the few voices people in prison have. I would like to share their stories with you and give them a voice. I hope my experiences can bring you hope and light this morning.
I first began to visit the prisons in the fall of 2008. I started a meditation group in the Concord medium security prison and ran the group for about two and a half years. When I first began running this group, I immediately noticed things weren’t as I expected. The men coming to this group weren’t the scary, dangerous men that I saw in the news and on TV crime dramas. I’m not going to say that there aren’t dangerous people in prison. There definitely are very dangerous people in prison, but the men that came to my meditation group were not dangerous, nor were they scary. They were like anybody else that I knew. They could have been my next door neighbor, a co-worker or even a friend. As I got to know these men better I realized that they were in fact someone’s neighbor, co-worker, friend, father, brother, and husband.
During the time I spent in the prison, I got to know Jack who got addicted to Oxycontin after a back surgery. When he could no longer get a prescription, he started buying Oxycontin on the street and then realized he could make a lot of money selling it. Then there was Antonio from Sicily, whom I felt a camaraderie with because of my own Italian roots. Antonio burnt down one of his restaurants for the insurance money and was sentenced to three years for arson. Another man in my group, Jason, got in a fight with someone harassing his sister. He knocked the man unconscious and his sister then stole the man’s wallet. Both Jason and his sister spent some time in prison for assault and robbery. The most unexpected of all was Tee who was serving two life sentences for a crime committed twenty years earlier. He was one of the most joyful people I had ever met and would often draw me pictures of Garfield and Tweetybird. There were also a few men, like Scott and Ray, who were repeat violent offenders trying to make an effort to improve their lives. All of these men were like overgrown kids who had become lost, broken, and abandoned. Overtime, they would become like my own children. I would worry when they struggled, ask about them if I hadn’t seen one of them in a while and listen to their hopes and dreams.
I can honestly say that I am a better person from having spent time with the men in Concord. Their encouragement and acceptance of myself helped me to become the person that I am today. The faith and confidence they placed in me to guide them to a better life helped me to have faith and confidence in myself. Hearing their gratitude to be alive or the fact that even though they had lost everything, they were better off than they had been before coming to prison helped me to re-evaluate my priorities. The little things that I often took for granite no longer seemed so important, and I found more joy and gratitude with what was already present in my life.
In the prison, scripture also came alive in ways it never had before. I used to joke that I’m going to write a book titled, “Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Jesus I Learned in Prison.” Unfortunately someone has already beaten me to that title, but there is a lot of truth in it. Jesus’ life and death, and the struggle of the early Christian community took on a whole new meaning for me in the light of prison, incarceration and death row. Thought I have never met anyone on death row, I have heard that many death row prisoners identify with Jesus’ arrest and execution. A lot of prisoners can also strongly relate to the struggles of the Apostle Paul. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard prisoners remind me and one another that the Apostle Paul spent many years in prison. These are the things that the men hold on to so that they can overcome their feelings of worthlessness and maintain some sense of dignity.
Watching the men at Concord form and develop their own sense of Christian community taught me what it means to be a church. Like the early Christians, I watched the men in Concord struggle to form a community, fall apart in times of crises and struggle to come back together. Like the early Christians who were forming churches in a time and place where they were not the majority religion and often found themselves harassed and persecuted, the fledgling Christian community in Concord found itself the minority within a hostile and oppressive environment. During the times when their community began to fall apart, I became like the Apostle Paul, encouraging the men that they are all one in Christ and urging them to keep the community together.
It was especially important for these men to maintain cohesion within their new community so that they could support and encourage one another to continue in the Christian life. Just as I’m sure it would have been easier for some of the early Christians to abandon their new way of life together and go back to the ways of the culture around them, it would have been easier for the men in Concord to go back to the hostile and violent ways of the prison. However, they knew that was not the kind of life they wanted for themselves and the people they cared about. So they supported one another in their efforts to continue in their new life together, and over time this new community became stronger and began to be a light within the darkness of the prison showing other prisoners and the guards a new way to live.
The similarities to the Christian story don’t pass these men by. Some of the men pointed out to me that they are like Paul writing to various communities offering encouragement and hope. Others who have been transferred from one prison to another start up Bible studies and prayer groups in each place they stop. They see the similarities with the early Apostles who travelled throughout the region starting new churches.
Despite everything that I have learned and all the wonderful experiences I have had with the prisoners, ministering to prisoners has been a bittersweet experience. The joy that I experience is frequently met with heart ache and struggle. Over the years, I watched dedicated volunteers get barred from volunteering without being given a reason why. I watched inmates after years of working hard to improve themselves get turned down for parole because they hadn’t done enough. I watched funding that in previous years went to provide mental health and addiction recovery treatment to women diverted to expand prisons for women despite the fact that 90% of women in prison suffer from mental health issues and addictions. I watch the Christian community in Concord fracture, fall apart, and struggle to come back together again.
Over the years, I also learned a lot that I didn’t know before going into the prisons. I learned that the mistakes we make continue to define us into the future. I learned that those who enter the prisons eventually have to pick a side. My focus was to help the inmates, so it appeared to some that I had picked the side of the inmates. I was told I picked the wrong side. I also learned that while the United States has 5% of the world’s overall population, it has 25% of the world’s prison population, and that the size of the prison population in the United States is surpassed only by the former Soviet Union and South Africa during Apartheid. I learned that a system designed to enhance public safety doesn’t always work with the public in mind.
I no longer run the meditation group in Concord. I have gone from volunteer to visitor, visiting men and women in various prisons in the area. Visiting is a different experience than volunteering. Instead of spending most of my time at the prison sitting with the inmates, I started spend most of my time at the prison sitting in the waiting area with the friends and families of the prisoners. The waiting area needs a chaplain. I’ve sat with women struggling to watch their small children while they make sure that they are following the strict guidelines of the dress code. The dress code is for security reason; however, it’s very detailed and easy to miss something. It’s not unusual that after a long wait, and finally being brought into the search area, called the trap, they are sent back out again because they are wearing knit pants, shorts under their skirt or some item of clothing that doesn’t follow the dress code. They have to fix their clothing and then it’s another wait with young children and babies until they are brought into the trap again. After awhile you learn the routine and things go smoother, but, many times, there has been a long wait. There were days where I waited three hours to get in only to have five minutes remaining of visiting time.
Over time, I noticed that the longer the wait is in the waiting room, the great the sense of despair. I had heard about the despair in prisons, but I never felt it until I began sitting in the waiting room. There is a palatable sense of despair that overcomes people. Even I have struggled with this sense of despair. So, I’ve tried to bring something positive to the experience. Recently, after waiting three hours to get in, I looked at the woman next to me and said, “It’s usually like this.” She said to me, “You are smiling” and I said, “What else can I do?” I can smile or I can feel the despair.
The men at concord have frequently told me that they miss the light that I bring into the dark place. This light shows them that God is present. That’s why it is important to them that I am there. That light is also needed in the visiting room, in the waiting room and everywhere else in the prison. So, my goal is to continue to bring light into the prison, in any way that I can.
Occasionally I ask myself, with everything that I have seen and experienced, “Would I do it again.” The answer is yes, every minute of it and I wouldn’t change a thing. Despite the challenges and sometimes heart aches that come with prison ministry, the sense of joy and fulfillment are profound. So I say to you just as Jesus said to his followers, “Follow me.” Follow me into the prisons. If you do, you will be profoundly changed and you will never look back again.
When I looked at the lectionary scriptures for this Sunday my first thought was to skip the lectionary! -They seemed so negative, so troubled and despairing. I thought, there is no way I can relate these to my last sermon here in Baldwinville! After I thought about it for a while, I decided the contrast and connections with the passages were too great to pass up.
Jeremiah is the consummate prophet. He feels the weight of God’s message heavy on him. To say the least, he is not popular. The leaders of the nation see him as disloyal, to the extent that they consider him being something of a traitor. He counseled surrender to King Nebuchadnezzar after all. He said that it was inevitable that the Babylonians would conquer them and destroy Jerusalem and the Temple in the process. He said it was God’s judgement for the spiritual failure of the nation; the failure to be just and caring, and remain true to God.
He was ridiculed, beaten, and imprisoned, but he kept preaching. Finally at the last minute he escaped to Egypt. Few clergy are treated as roughly as Jeremiah. -I have known a couple of clergy people who were run out of town over the years for religious/political views, or anti-war sentiment, but nothing like the O.T. prophet. Then again few of us are quite as provocative and daring as Jeremiah.
Certainly, my time here in Baldwinville has been relatively peaceful. From the moment Jim, un-officially, but publicly and exuberantly welcomed me as minister in 2012, -before vote was even taken. I felt a welcome here and an affinity with you. His welcome was perhaps symbolic of your embrace.
While some churches had conflict over the proper response to COVID, we did not. In the strident political climate of the last few years some have found conflict in families and in churches. We have kept that on the sidelines, and you have allowed me to speak the truth as I understand it. Some might have felt I was too measured in my political speech, some might have felt I was a little too direct, but on the whole there was respect for differing views. And I always received more support and thanks for my sermons than disagreement. Ultimately, we all have been confronted by the biblical prophets like Jeremiah, Amos, and Hosea who saw that political decisions that involved moral choices around justice and equality were also religious decisions that required our best spiritual insight in decision making. Thank you for being a congregation willing to look at some of those moral/spiritual issues.
When I look at the Matthew passage, I can’t help but wonder at the pain and division that first century church must have gone through. Families torn apart over religion! -In some cases, it was Jewish families finding children, or other members, leaving the synagogue for this new variant of the faith which seemed to disrespect all the traditional rules for kosher.
In other cases, it was pagan families upset that some were joining what they judged to be a new exclusivist cult, where worshiping at a shrine to the emperor was forbidden! -You couldn’t even call the emperor “Lord.” –That all seemed unpatriotic and in fact became illegal! Some friends, and even families, were so divided that they turned others in to the authorities because of these traitorous beliefs! –And, of course, some of those friends and family were tortured and put to death for the ardency of their beliefs. Can you imagine a little house church with a dozen or two people trying to hold it together having to go through that kind of tension and struggle?
No wonder Matthew quotes Jesus saying something like, “Don’t expect discipleship to be easy! -It won’t be. It will be hard.”
But Matthew goes on to remind them that God is with them, and that Jesus presence is always in their midst. Of course, they cannot know that in another 200 years that Christianity will become the official religion of the empire. In fact I’m sure they couldn’t imagine it. It ought to remind us, as we struggle with the dwindling resources and the dwindling significance of the church in society that we can’t see the future either; we are just called to be faithful and to share God’s Good News with the world.
The next few years aren’t likely to be easy for small churches there will be changes and uncertainty, but God is still God, and God’s Spirit may yet be breathing new life into the church’s future.
I pray that you may feel God’s presence strength as you work towards that unknown future and rejoice in the hope of God’s Kingdom.
As we think about Father’s Day and families the Abraham story seems to fit right in. In fact Genesis is filled with family stories and Abraham is recognized as the father of three of the world’s great religions. This morning we had just a piece of the Abraham & Sarah story. Of course, the bible continues to trace the intricacies of this family history through multiple generations. –One of the things that makes it such an engaging story is that it’s not just their faith and goodness that is talked about in the story, it is all the foolishness and foibles of this family as well. The whole story is infused with laughter and invites playfulness.
The Bible pulls no punches. These are not saintly folks in any usual understanding of the word. –These are normal families with all the crazy dysfunctional problems of everyday families, with faith that is quite often lacking strength, and values that get twisted by emotions. It begins with audaciousness of God making seemingly impossible promises. Even Sarah laughs at these promises in today’s passage.
As for faithless foibles: Abraham as a younger man was ready to marry off his wife Sarah, to another man out of fear that the other man, who was a powerful ruler, might kill him to take her because she was so beautiful. –God saves them both from that fiasco!
Sarah, who laughs today, earlier gives up on the idea of having children and suggests a surrogate mother to Abraham. Sarah tells him to have a son with her maid, because she is convinced she is not going to bear children. Her laughter today is only a part of the absurdity she sees in continuing to hope, or expectation that that she can bear children at this point in her life. –Then once she does bear this Son Isaac, (the name by the way means laughter) she wants the elder surrogate son, the one produced by her servant, out of the picture and asks Abraham to send that mother and child both away so that her son can get the full inheritance! In Islamic tradition, Arabic nations come from this eldest son of Abraham, who is Ishmael and therefore are the rightful inheritors of God’s promises.
Certainly, the biblical story today wants to underscore that God continues to be faithful. God’s promises are sure –even when everything logical says God has let us down, or failed to deliver on expected promises. “Is anything impossible for God?” is the penetrating question posed at the end by one these strangers.
–You may note that even though Sarah’s faith is lacking, and her doubts are abundant, –she does in fact have a son. In the final analysis God’s promises really do not depend on her.
In the continuing story, Sarah’s son, Isaac, in turn has two sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau the older is Dad’s favorite & is a real man’s man. Jacob, the younger, is something of a momma’s boy. But Jacob, in a bit of chicanery, manages to get his brother to giving him the eldest birthright, and with a lot of help from mom, manages to dupe the old man, into giving him the family blessing over his older brother. Jacob then has to run away to his mother’s family to escape his brother’s wrath.
–The duplicity doesn’t end there. Jacob in turn, is later tricked by his uncle into marrying a different woman than he wants to. And then he is tricked by 11 of his sons into thinking his favorite child, Joseph, is dead, when in fact the brothers have contrived to sell him into slavery to a caravan going to Egypt.
And imagine, Abraham in our story today, God shows up in the form of three strangers. It is all out of the blue and Abraham responds with the best of Mid-Eastern hospitality, bowing and inviting them to stay. Note that he tells the men he will serve them dinner, then he immediately goes to his wife and says, “ Why don’t you dig out some more flour and bake some more bread (or cakes depending on the translations) I just invited these three guys for dinner.” In the next breath he tells his servant to take care of butchering the calf and preparing the steaks. –It sounds like a classic case of masculine hospitality! – To make matters worse, you may notice that when the meal is talked about later in the story there isn’t even a mention of the bread that Sarah has had to make from scratch on a hot desert afternoon!
-A little Father’s Day tip guys, this is not the way to win points with your wife! -Maybe you want to bear in mind that it took an act of God for Abraham to have a child with his wife! Abraham ate with the three men, Sarah didn’t join them. She stays back in the tent and listens in on their conversation. Laughing at how foolish they are.
-There are a lot more intricacies and subtleties to the story of Abraham and his descendants of course, but that is the brief outline of family history. –Now, tell me if that family isn’t at least as mixed up a family as yours!
The bible includes these stories not to legitimatize family squabbles and misbehavior but to affirm God working, even in the turbulent, mixed up twists and turns of our lives. Even when faith is lacking…even when we are something less than perfect.
–Even Ishmael, the surrogate son of Abraham is blessed by God and returns to join his half-brother in burying Abraham.
—And Jacob & Esau, the two feuding brothers, embrace many years later. And of course Joseph, the one sold into slavery in Egypt, turns out to save his family from famine as he rises to prominence there. And he reminds his brothers “You meant it for evil but God used it for good”
In some sense Sarah’s laughter at the suggestion that she is going to have a son of her own now in her later years might be seen as laughter at the whole absurd story that follows.
Common sense tells her she can’t have a child, after all she has been trying for years and she knows it’s too late now.
And common sense would tell us that a family so wracked by fighting and intrigue couldn’t possibly be used by God for some greater purpose. –But there it is in the story. God always surprising. God always moving through the cracks in our lives and the chaos of our families to let in the light and bring saving hope.
If God can use Abraham and his family God can use anyone’s! I know it may seem laughable, but Genesis would beg to differ.
Maybe we don’t have to be giants of faith, we just have to go forward with a hope for God’s purposes and a willingness to take the next step! -Sometimes even when it still seems laughable!
God still makes promises for the future and invites us to be a part of them. Just remember, the larger promises to Abraham took generations to fulfill, and even that promise to have a son took a lifetime to fulfill.
At first glance this passage in Matthew seems like three unrelated little stories stuck together. Simply because they happen on the same day. But look closer and you see three desperate people from different walks of life encounter Jesus. Each of them compromises him in regards to the purity laws needs but of them come with their own desperation. A desperation that overrides the purity concerns. And they each see God’s presence in him.
The first is Matthew, who becomes a disciple. He seems to be the last of the twelve, at least the last one whose calling is spelled out. Had he heard and seen Jesus before? -We don’t know. His calling and response both seem out of the blue. One has to assume that he had had some contact with Jesus before this. He must have been looking for something else in his life, don’t you think? Tax collectors worked for the Romans and were looked down on or resented by a large part of the Jewish population. Not only were they collaborators with the overlords, they had to handle Roman money and deal with gentiles which meant they regularly came in contact with the unclean. But they also got their wages by collecting more than Rome demanded in taxes for their region and keeping the extra as profit. The very nature of the job made you despised. -Yes, some could become wealthy depending on how much they could cajole and strong-arm people, but most, simply got by on the edges of society. Most people simply tried to avoid them.
Matthew was sick of it, it seems. Jesus’ message of acceptance and a calling to a higher loyalty, and a vision of a different world gave him both hope and a reason for living that he had not known before. He was desperate for something new and for grace that might embrace him.
Of course, the religious leaders found it scandalous that Jesus not only accepted this unclean conspirator with Rome among his followers, but then he had the audacity to go to this man’s home and eat dinner with him -and a bunch of his friends. The minute Jesus walked into this house he was considered religiously unclean.
Of course, when your heart is breaking, and there seems to be no hope, you are willing to overlook a lot of things. Such was the case for the one religious leader whose daughter had just died. (In Mark and Luke, who tell the same story, the man says his daughter is dying, not already dead.) He’s a person with some religious rank who would have been well aware of the purity laws, but he just comes right in as the dinner is finishing and kneels before Jesus begging him to come bring his healing presence to his daughter. He believes God’s presence is in Jesus. Jesus holds no grudges. He immediately gets up, skips dessert I guess, and heads to the man’s house.
We aren’t told how far away the man’s house is. But along the route, with the disciples, the man, and a whole entourage of on-lookers and people interested to see what will happen, a woman who has had a menstrual cycle problem for 12 years, bleeding nonstop all that time, pushes through the crowd. This illness makes her ritually unclean according to Leviticus. Twelve years of being unclean, having to be on the outskirts of respectable society. If you think COVID restrictions were hard, imagine this woman with 12 years of keeping a distance. She just wants to touch him, or even the bottom of his cloak. She believes God’s presence is in him. She lunges forward, perhaps falling on her knees just touching the bottom of his robe. Jesus feels something, something more than just a tug on his robe. He feels grace and power has gone out of him. He feels the faith and the longing that has brought her to this point. Jesus turns and sees her. There is a gentleness in his response. He is not angry at the interruption. Interruptions in life are sometimes the most important work we do! He calls her “Daughter”. It is a term of affection and relationship, probably short for “Daughter of Abraham,” which also affirms that she is blessed, a child of God, someone with a heritage of hope and a relationship to God’s promises. Is it a coincidence that he is on his way to heal an important man’s daughter? Probably not; Jesus is emphasizing that she too is a daughter, and every bit as important as the official’s. It immediately lets her know that she is not being rebuked or called out for overstepping. He assures her that her faith has made her well. It is a beautiful story of faith and affirmation.
When Jesus arrives at the official’s house, they are already mourning her death. They assume it is too late for Jesus to do anything. Jesus dismisses all the mourners saying this girl is not really dead, only sleeping. Again, as soon as he takes the dead girl’s hand (at least dead in their minds) Jesus is unclean. There is a whole ritual you have to go through after touching a dead body before you are considered clean. Jesus once again, ignores all of that. He is simply responding to the father’s faith and grief and bringing life and hope to where there is death and sorrow. Or, as John quotes Jesus saying, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
Three desperate and very different people encounter Jesus on the same day. Each of them responds with remarkable faith. –Matthew, the unclean tax collector, drops everything, quits his job and becomes a disciple. -A woman, suffering from an illness that makes her unclean, brazenly pushes through the throng around Jesus to simply touch his garment. -An official in the synagogue ignores protocols, breaks into a dinner hosted by a tax collector and attended by those considered unclean, a dinner he would normally avoid at all costs, to beg Jesus to give his daughter life. Each of them from a different status and place in society yet each of them needs Jesus. Jesus reacts to each of them with the same caring and the same life-giving power. There is no differentiation in his attitude or response. Each gets what they need. Each is gifted with new life.
The three stories so clearly show God’s unconditional love in action through Jesus. It is like the UCC motto, God doesn’t care who you are or where you are on life’s journey, and neither does Jesus. Maybe that’s the reason that Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all tell these three stories. They bear a truth so important for us. Each of them is a great story individually. But taken together they are the consummate word of hope and grace. Maybe that’s the reason Matthew puts the three of them together in one day. Mark and Luke separate Matthew’s call.
It all starts with a celebration dinner Matthew, the new disciple, throws. He has invited Jesus and the other disciples, but also a bunch of other folks from the far edges of society. It is the springboard for all that happens.
We don’t know if these other two people had their life changed beyond the healing. Don’t you wonder how the synagogue official reacted to others who were considered unclean after this? -And what the woman did with her life after her healing?
Some people change their lives completely after an experience of grace. Certainly, Matthew did. But sometimes people just fall back into their old habits and mind set. There’s always the hope that encountering Jesus makes a permanent difference. I guess in my mind I think of the official having a gentler attitude towards those on the outside of society and maybe the woman found a place of service to neighbors and friends, or perhaps others suffering from diseases that put them at arm’s length from others.
The three stories are meant to let us know that no matter where we are, or who we are, we are not outside God’s grace -and that Jesus is always ready to respond to the desperation that sometimes envelopes us in life. May the presence of that Jesus be with you.
As I mentioned in the opening, this is “Trinity Sunday” in the lectionary calendar. It’s not high on the list of important Sundays in most people’s estimation. It was a doctrine that was argued vehemently in the second and third centuries, but it’s not a doctrine that most folks today get too excited about. I’m guessing that most Christians simply accept the idea of a triune God, -three in one, as of the hard to define doctrines of the church and let it go at that. I am not going to bore you with the arguments of Athanasius and Tertullian and all those others. The truth is I can’t keep it all straight in my head either. We’ll just leave it with ‘One God with three personas’. But do know that still in the Orthodox and Catholic tradition it is still true that if you are not baptized in the name of “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” your baptism is not considered legit. In large part that is true because of the passage from Matthew this morning. It is the only place in scripture that this baptismal code is specifically spelled out. Matthew attributes those words to Jesus, or at least the resurrected Christ, but there are no definitions or explanations attached.
It may strike you as surprising, but this is the first appearance of the Resurrected Jesus to the disciples in Matthew. Only the women, specifically Mary Magdalene and another Mary, have seen him before this. There is no upper room appearance, no Emmaus Rd. walk, and no doubting Thomas in Matthew. And note this appearance is back in Galilee, not in and around Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified and Luke has the ascension. Matthew is second only to Mark in the brevity of the experiences of the Risen Christ. Here, Jesus appears once to the women and then here where he gives the Great Commission and then Jesus is gone.
Matthew’s overriding theme casts Jesus as the New Moses. –Moses is rescued from Pharaoh’s edict to kill male babies; Jesus is rescued from the slaughter of innocents by King Herod. Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt with the help of God, and Jesus is brought out of Egypt to Nazareth by Mary & Joseph through the providence of God. Moses delivers the 10 Commandments from a mountain, and Jesus does the Sermon on the Mount. In the end Moses goes up on a mountain and delivers a final speech pointing to the Promised Land and then simply disappears, in Matthew Jesus gives the final commission from a mountain top, as we read today, and then simply disappears.
The one little caveat that Matthew slips in here is that “Some doubted.” Don’t you find that both comforting and intriguing? Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus told the disciples just after they had finished the Last Supper that he would meet them later back in Galilee. Matthew says that the Angels that appeared to the two Mary’s at the tomb Easter morning told them to go to tell the disciples to go to the mountain in Galilee where he would appear to them. It has to be several days later because Galilee is almost 100 miles to the north.
It is another ‘Mountain Top’ experience, and though they worship him, some doubted. Doesn’t that resonate with you? Even as they encounter the Risen Christ some are having doubts. The inference is that they can hardly believe what is going on. Can this really be Jesus? Is this really real?
The reason I chose the Common English version to read today is because it follows the majority of translations and includes the word, “some”. The RSV updated edition just says, “They doubted”. -The reason is the Greek simply says “The Ones” doubted which may imply “They” or mean “some”. Just one of the struggles of translation, does “The Ones” mean, “They”- as in all of them, or does it mean “Some?” Whichever, it gives me heart that these disciples, who gave their lives to preaching and teaching the Resurrected Christ, had their moments of doubt, even in the midst of a Resurrection appearance. Maybe faith is never as simple and certain as we imagine it is for others, even the disciples. Faith is like a living thing in us. It varies in strength and intensity. We may doubt our own experiences of grace.
They were, all together on the mountain where they encountered the Risen Christ, even so, some doubted. No one was critiqued, or criticized, or rejected because of their doubts. Jesus simply affirms that he has been given authority and power by God and then commissions them to preach & teach what he has shared with them and make disciples in all nations, assuring them that he will be with them always.
So today we come to this communion table knowing that whatever our doubts or struggles with faith, Jesus does not reject us. Instead he welcomes us to this table with an affirmation of God’s Love, made evident in the Crucifixion and Resurrection. He embraces us with the promise that he will be with us till the end of time. He encourages us with the challenge to go and make disciples calling us to make a difference in the world. He calls us to go out to the world and witness with our lives to God’s love and hope for humanity. His presence will be with us in times of rejoicing and times of struggle.
The bread and the cup today are reminders of his presence and of the love and forgiveness of God that was manifest in him. Whatever your struggles of faith he still deems you worthy; still extends his blessings and his calling. And he invites you to come and take of the Cup of Grace.
So, we have a lot going on today, with Memorial Day, Pentecost and Confirmation. It’s not too hard to see a connection between, Confirmation and Pentecost, since the disciples were in some sense confirmed in their faith and calling at Pentecost. It is often called the birthday of the church. Three thousand Luke says were added to the church that day. And Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth about the diversity of gifts speaks for itself. We, who know you Matt, know that you have a number of gifts to share with the world and are confident you will in fact use them to do good in the world. We applaud and give thanks for what you have done to bring forth those gifts so far in your life and our confirmation service today is not only about confirming you in the faith it is also a blessing this church wants to bestow on you for all your future endeavors with your God given talents and hard work
But let us make clear this is a Confirmation service, not a conformation service. We are not expecting you to conform to any set of creeds or our assumptions about what your life should be. You are only confirming your trust in the mystery of God as revealed historically in Jesus of Nazareth and through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Faith is not a static thing that you grab hold of once and put in your pocket, so to speak.
Affirming faith is a life-long process, with its own ups and downs, doubts and uncertainties. As we have looked at the big issues of life and faith over the last year I have tried to say the answers you have now will have to be revisited along the way. Life and faith are journeys, with surprises along the way. Life will look different at different stages of your life.
Life questions you, pushes you find meaning, purpose and hope in different ways along our journey. Look around this room, I would venture to say there isn’t anyone over 40 here who hasn’t lost someone they love along the way, or at least had to revisit and reevaluate their beliefs because of some event or change in their lives.
Confirmation is not ultimately about being a good citizen, loyal and patriotic…you already are that.
Confirmation is not about making your parents proud, -you already do that.
Confirmation is about confirming your connection to this journey of faith at this important transitional point in your young life. It means trying to listen to the Holy voice that speaks to the human heart along the way. Recognizing that what we find in the Bible is the sacred witness of those who have travelled this road before. They were visionaries of the faith in the past and have spoken of their experience and the revelation they found in their encounter with the Holy. What we do here is confirm a seed of faith in you. Our hope is that it will grow and develop as you continue your journey.
So this past year I have tried to give you a little introduction to the bible, how it came to be and the general issues in interpreting the text. And, of course we looked at Jesus and the Christian understanding about him. But as much as we did that, I have tried to stress the mystery of human life. Human life is not one dimensional. There is something more to life and death than simple mechanical accounting. That’s where religion and faith come into the picture. We want to use rational thought and intelligent understanding in assessing life as well as faith. But life is complex and mysterious.
The late David Foster Wallace, in a rather famous graduation speech back in 2005 (you would have been less than a year old then) began his talk with a little analogy about two fish swimming and another fish swims by and says, “Great water today!” A few moments later one of the two swimming together says to the other, “What the heck is water?” He suggests that the truth of the little analogy is that often it is the most obvious and important things all around us that we have the most trouble talking about or beginning to think about. They may be as pervasive as water to a fish, but somehow out of our realm of thinking.
Wallace goes on to also delve into religion and faith with a story of two guys meeting in a bar in central Alaska. They begin talking and one says he is an atheist, the other says he is a believer. As the conversation goes on the atheist says, “Well it’s not like I haven’t given God a chance. Last year I was riding my snowmobile in the wilderness area and it broke down in the midst of the worst blizzard of the year. I hadn’t expected it so I wasn’t prepared. I thought I might die. I broke down and prayed. “O God, if there is a God, please save me! –But nothing happened.” –The believer said, “Well something must have happened; you’re still here.” -The atheist replied, “No, I just lucked out and two Eskimos happened by heading home on their snowmobiles and they gave me a ride.”
Faith is sometimes just a different perspective in life.
–Marcus Borg, a famous theologian and writer, (he happens to have been born the same year I was- but he died in 2015) in one of his books said, “Faith is not so much about believing this or that,” (Or I might add, using religious language like calling Jesus ‘Lord’.) “Faith is ultimately simply recognizing that God IS, and out of that affirmation developing a relationship with that which we call God or Christ, or the Spirit, in some more personal and interconnected way.”
For Christians, obviously, Jesus becomes the person, the way we understand and relate to that God. He becomes the vehicle to unlock the meaning of God’s will and hope for us as human beings.
Certainly, our hope for you is that you will walk with God. Part of that is just knowing that God walks with you. God can be a strength to uphold you in difficult times and perhaps sometimes to remind us of our truer and best selves.
It has been suggested that Jesus’ prayer for the church in our John passage this morning is one of the preeminent prayers of Jesus that never gets fulfilled. –In fact one theologian has said that this prayer, which ends with “that they may be one as we are one” is likely to get the answer Jesus wants in that proverbially time “When hell freezes over!” While there was some ecumenical movement towards unity in the 50’s and 60’s everything in Christianity is going the other way these days. The United Methodist Church, the largest protestant denomination in the country is being torn apart over the Gay & Transgender issues. There are also strong pressures of divisiveness in the Baptist, & Episcopal churches as well as some other smaller denominations. And, of course, there are also tensions within the Catholic Church between conservative and more liberal factions only held in check by the power of the Pope.
The truth is, from the very beginning there were differences within the church. Luke records that early argument between Peter and Paul and James, with Paul’s more inclusive and accepting position winning out. By early 300 AD Emperor Constantine, when he converted to Christianity, felt there was too much diversity of belief and practice in the church. To eliminate haggling over differences he called the Council of Nicaea to iron out official doctrinal stands. The result, of course, was that some wound up being branded heretics. Constantine also wanted the church to be a unifying force in the Empire.
Jesus’ prayer, as John records it, is both an expression of John’s theology, and an expression of hope and blessing for the church. John’s gospel starts out telling us that Jesus was preexistent with God, “In the beginning was the Word” John 1 says, and “The Word made flesh” in John’s language. Here in the prayer Jesus puts emphasis on his unity with God. They are to “Glorify” each other. Knowing Jesus lets us know God in a more personal way. This, ‘Knowing’ is the basis of, and the meaning of, Eternal Life as John understands it. It is a life that begins here and now as one lives with a deep connection to God and Jesus. It is not about knowing about God, but living in communion with God through this deeper personal understanding. Eternal Life in John’s gospel is a quality of life lived with peace and love infused and born out of this relationship to God and Jesus.
Out of that affirmation and hope, Jesus prays for the church and its unity of purpose and commitment. He will be gone, but the church is to be an expression of his life, and God’s love for the world.
I’m guessing John has already seen a fragmenting of the church into diverse theologies and practices as he writes his gospel, and he wants to underscore the hope of Jesus for a deep unity among his followers. I imagine the memory of that little band that Luke tells about in our Acts passage, you know, those early disciples so committed and together they held everything in common, they must have had a strong nostalgic pull on the church by the end of the First Century. Christianity had by then burgeoned into a diverse group spread around the Roman Empire. We know there were different interpretations of the meaning of Jesus’ life, death, & Resurrection on the scene by the end of the first century. So it’s not surprising that John wants to spark a remembrance of the founding hope of unity and community, that special sense of cohesion and purpose that bound them together.
There have been lots of covenantal community movements within Christianity over the years trying to get closer to the early church model. From monasteries in the Middle Ages to the proliferation of groups in the 17 & 18 hundreds such as the Amish, the Shakers, the Amana community. There were actually 80 different utopian communities established in the US in the decade of the 1840’s alone. These were spurred on by reactions to the beginnings of the industrial revolution, the religious fervor aroused by the Great Awakening, as well as the a general dissatisfaction with the way society was going. From groups like Brook Farm near Boston, which was a more secular offshoot of the Transcendentalist movement, to Fruitlands, down the road in Harvard, to Oneida further west in New York. Some were stricter than others. Fruitlands, was so strict it didn’t last long, -you could eat no meat, use no animals to do physical labor, use no artificial light, like oil lamps, take no hot baths, or drink anything more than water. It’s not hard to see why that Spartan life style lost its luster pretty quickly. Some groups like the Amana Community and the Shakers lasted well into the 20th century.
Sadly, there have also been some of these groups more recently that have become self-destructive. –There was Jonestown, in 1978 -where a group that started out with noble sounding ideals embraced the paranoia of their leader and some 900 hundred of them drank the poisoned cool-aid. Or there was the Adventist group in Waco Texas back in the 90’s that wound up in a destructive standoff with the FBI. And just recently there was the Christian cult-like group in Kenya where over 200 starved themselves to death, fasting, waiting for Jesus.
John writes to Christians that were considered part of a cult by many in that day. He writes with the hope of encouraging and comforting them, but also wanting to hold them true to the teachings and principles of Jesus. John validates the church as those called out to live differently than others, but never in a way that rejects the world or dooms us to a negative view of the future or the world the world. He writes to Christians who have reasons to be afraid but are called to be faithful. He sends this prayer from Jesus but also that bold affirmation that “God so loved the world” he sent his son “that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”
A church that follows Jesus is in covenant, with God, with Jesus and with each other. But it is never an outpost seeking to estrange itself from the world or reject those outside its walls. It is bearing witness in the world God loves. It is not a bastion of negativity but of hope. It is not a place of disdain for those outside – but a place that reaches out and welcomes in!
We still need the church. The world still needs the church! And the church still needs to be a covenant of faithful people, serving in Christ’s name.
One of the big problems in American society, researchers tell us, is loneliness, lack of community and a sense of belonging. The church, John would tell us, embraces all those human needs. A covenant group that serves as a witness to God’s redeeming work in the world. And because it belongs to Jesus, the church seeks to bring justice and wholeness to human life, and universal blessing to all God’s creation.
The late Lin Yutan, a Chinese American philosopher and scholar tells about his conversion to embrace the Christian faith in his mid-60’s. He says, “Below the surface of my life, a disquiet began to set in. It was born both of reflection and experience. I saw that the fruit of the humanistic age of enlightenment was an age of materialism. Man’s increasing belief in himself as God did not seem to be making him more godlike. He was becoming more clever. But he had less and less of the sober, uplifting humility of one who has stood in the presence of God. Contemporary history seemed to indicate how dangerously near the savage state man may be even while he is more advanced technologically.”
The insufficiencies in the modern world in terms of caring and community have made us a more frazzled people. It seems to have put us more on edge and made us more likely to strike out in anger, more forgetful of simple human kindness. The church, as a covenant community faithful to Jesus, was never more needed, even if never more pushed to the sidelines.
Jesus’ prayer for the church and his call for unity is both a critique of the persistence of human divisiveness, and a reminder of who we are supposed to be. It calls us to faithfulness and service.
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